Aja Waalwijk “I search for the poetry in the narrative.”
Aja Waalwijk (b. 1952), an artist and Dutch literature teacher at a secondary school in Amsterdam, grew up in Zwanenburg, a village close to Ruigoord. His grandfather, an old-clothes-man, was well-known in Ruigoord. Aja was the newspaper boy for the daily “Parool” in his teens.
In 1973, he started to visit the squat village with several artists from Zwanenburg. Aja has been active in the squatters’ movement and protest actions against the subway. He associated with punk-artists like Diana Ozon en Hugo Kaagman. Waalwijk has close ties with other alternative communities in Europe, such as Christiania (Denmark) and Doel (Belgium).
Travelling around the world, he met Aboriginals and Native Americans and invited them to Ruigoord. He also brings pieces of wood and other objects he finds in foreign places to create his art objects. Aja also works on projects, like the construction of a huge Ruigosaurus and the ‘Windmill Mokum’, which will be erected at the edge of the renewed Ruigoord.
The painting shows the windmill with three Andreas crosses, which can also be found in the Amsterdam coat of arms.
